Norman Yakeleya

It might get me into trouble not to recognize my beautiful wife up there in the gallery along with my father and my mother-in-law. I know they’re not my constituents, but they are family from Fort Providence, Albert and Caroline Bonnetrouge, and my sister-in-law, Jackie Hope. Welcome to the gallery.

I guess that’s one of the appeasing factors. We live in a clean, fresh North and we would like to keep it that way to attract the tourism.

In Asia, it would certainly be nice to take a trip over there some day; however, I will just have to wait.

Part of the tourism and promotion is to promote our lifestyle, that’s something appeasing, also, for our traditional arts and crafts – people are deadly artists and handcrafters in our small communities – that people want to see. Not made in China art, but made in the Sahtu, made in the Deh Cho, Beaufort-Delta, Tu Nedhe, whatever, made in Tlicho arts...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d certainly love to join Mrs. Groenewegen’s support for nurses and RCMP in small communities; however, I’m going to talk about the importance of life on the land for our people in our communities, people who fish on the Great Slave Lake, people who hunt up in the Bear Lake area and on the Mackenzie River, people who hunt up in the Beaufort-Delta, people who live on the land. Yesterday I heard from Mr. Ramsay that there’s a lot of support from our community members who make a life on the land either fishing, hunting or trapping and one of the things that I wanted to...

Mr. Chair, a couple quick questions to the Minister. I’m certainly pleased to see the community tourism infrastructure in the budget of $100,000, given the need for infrastructure in our communities to attract tourism into our communities. It’s not quite the same as some of the larger centres. I want to ask the Minister, if this $100,000, is this start-up funding and just ongoing funding, is it one time?

There are a lot of communities that are not on the highway system and to put more infrastructure in our small communities to attract a segment of the tourism group would considerably make it so...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly with the energy contributions, we certainly were pleased and people in Deline were pleased that the MECC Committee found it in their hearts to support that continued project. They have been at it for 17 years and they were just waiting for further funding to finish off the studies so they can come back and say this is exactly what they’ll need to start the construction. That’s my understanding. The Minister can correct me if I’m wrong. To start the construction of the Bear River hydro initiative. This has been in their view for about 17 years. Incredibly patient...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is my last question. Mr. Vician talked about a permanent position. I’m not too sure if that’s in the Sahtu or Yellowknife or Inuvik or in ongoing discussions with the National Energy Board. Need we remind the Minister that we are taking over this responsibility? We are in the driver’s seat. We’re contracting the National Energy Board. I think it works that we sign the cheque, so they should be able to go to work wherever we tell them to go to work. If they can’t do it, then we certainly can find other regulators or we can train our own people to do that work in the...

Thank you for the information. I wanted to ask with regard to the National Energy Board, I thought maybe that might be something that the Minister might have considered having some on-the-ground people in the Sahtu, in light of the oil and gas early exploration activities that are going on with the hydraulic fracking and other activities that would…(inaudible)…to having the National Energy Board closer in the Sahtu region, just to make things okay and give people some confidence and comfort that we are taking our issues seriously and that we have on-the-ground people with the National Energy...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, February 27, 2014, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on February 27, 2014, it shall be adjourned until Monday, March 3, 2014; and further, that any time prior to March 3, 2014, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet an at earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the...

I look forward to seeing if anything can come forward from working with his colleagues, like productive choices through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, so that people in the small communities can go to either the Department of RWED or to Education, Culture and Employment and say we want to take our family on the land, this is what it’s going to cost us to bring our families out, so that we have support from the government.

Would the Minister come forward within the life of this government, so maybe by next year we can have a program that would be offered to all people in...

I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I hope the Minister will have the people approach the regional office and once we approach it, that is good, we need to then dedicate some dollars to it if we’re going to move forward, knowing that if we can take care of the Department of Health and Social Services, the regulations and all this stuff, all of this has to be fleshed out to make sure it’s okay to bring these foods into the institutions, the jails, the old folks’ homes, we need to work on that. So we need to have some dollars to say yes, we support you, now let’s work out some of these issues...